Great Live Entertainment Is Back – Wherever You Want A Big Night “Out”

The coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19 have hit the entertainment industry and performing arts hard in 2020. Spectator sports took a months-long sabbatical. Broadway, other regional theater and most concerts have remained dark since spring, movie theaters have been closed, opened, closed again and generally empty regardless what the sign on the door says. Hollywood has held back new releases, and even though many of us have upped our hours in front of the flat screen, new TV shows are way behind after production delays – who knows who long we will have to wait to find out what’s going to happen next on Cobra Kai?

There have been trickles of entertainment hope, with some live shows returning to Las Vegas, but as resorts there keep reducing openings from lack of visitors, it remains to be seen who wants so actually attend indoor shows (not me). More successful was the great drive-in movie theater revival of 2020, which got us out and raised spirits on some otherwise sequestered summer nights, briefly joined by limited drive-in concerts, though both have wound down seasonally in most of the country.

In many places, restaurants, another big form of excitement outside the home, are also closed, and where they are open, a lot of people who follow the news have realized that eating inside restaurants may not be a good idea. So for those of us craving a night on the town, a date night, or just a fun and lively night out – like in the good old days – a chance to enjoy the diversion of live entertainment would be a magical escape.

Just before Thanksgiving, I discovered this magic. So can you.

Two years ago, I wrote here at Forbes about a growing trend, the return of magicians as popular entertainment across the country, in a way not seen since the so-called “Golden Age of Magic” in the 1920’s, when stars like Dante, Thurston, Carter The Great, Dai Vernon and most of all, Harry Houdini, were household names. Most of the shows I cited as part of this revival around the country are currently shuttered, and one early pandemic victim was one of my favorites, Dan White, aka The Magician at the NoMad. For three years, White’s show was the worst kept secret in the Big Apple, not a household name, but so buzzy and popular that the 56-seat dedicated venue in the hip NoMad Hotel consistently sold out weeks in advance and garnered rave reviews.

I liked it so much I went twice, and part of the appeal was a lot of very close-up tricks, way more impressive than the smoke and mirror elephant vanishing behind a curtain, because you think you see everything the entire time – yet the magic still works. “People are craving more unique and individual experiences, things that go beyond the easily accessible and mass consumed. Magic is an art form that many have never experienced live,” said White, explaining magic’s comeback and his show’s popularity. “You go to a Broadway-style show, even magic, and you’re just watching. You come to a small magic show like this and you are experiencing, you’re part of it.” To his point, there was a lot of audience participation, and you came away feeling as if White had read your mind – which is exactly why the show now works so well as an at-home – but still live and intimate – version for these pandemic times.

Let me be clear – The Magician Online is not a TV special. It is a live, ticketed performance, just like the one I saw in the NoMad theater, with a few key differences. First, it is an all new show, so even if you saw it, or like me, saw it more than once, it’s different. Secondly, there are less showings – it is now only Friday and Saturday nights but there are two shows nightly. Thirdly, while they serve cocktails at the original, this one is BYOB. Finally, at the in-person show they handed out anything the audience needed, like decks of cards. For this one, they send them to you. For real.

It’s also totally safe – no stranger danger here.

The Magician Online has taken pains I’ve seen nowhere else to translate a night out experience to a night in. You still have to buy tickets well in advance, and now that anyone in the country can attend, it’s hard to get one. They limit it because they have kept the full audience participation thing going. Once you get your ticket, they ship you a box and urge you to keep it sealed until showtime because it has secret magic stuff. They even send you snacks and accoutrement so you can recreate the feel of sitting in the dinner theater at the NoMad, but I can’t give more away. Bottom line – they have meticulously recreated as much of the in-person experience as they could, but at home (The only failing in this regards is that despite clear instructions that everyone would be on screen and urging people to dress in cocktail attire, which most do at the NoMad, an alarming number of guests thought it would be a good idea to show up in sweats, gym shorts and baseball hats, despite being on camera and involved in tricks, so those in jackets and dresses really stood out, for doing the right thing).

“Dan’s performances at The NoMad Hotel sold out two months in advance, in 10 seconds or less per show – but that ended abruptly when Broadway shut down in early March,” Jonathan Bayme told me. Bayme is the founder of theory11, the production company behind the NoMad show. “Magic is especially challenging during a pandemic – as it is (by definition) participatory and interactive. How do you interact with people when you can’t have them examine an object or even pick a card? We initially thought it was impossible. As the weeks passed, though – we began to embrace the situation as a creative challenge: how do you keep magic alive, and create an experience that brings people together – even while they are (safely) apart? We spent the next 6 months figuring out the answer to that riddle.”

And they have. You get a trip to the exotic without leaving your home, a superb show done Zoom-style that will be easy to follow for anyone used to working from home, and a link sent the day of. It’s a brilliant concept and when I got tickets, I marked “Secret Date Night” on our calendar and surprised my wife. We sat in front of the screen at the appointed time, opened our mystery box as instructed and were dazzled, alternatively watching and participating and being amazed when the card we picked from a deck at home was detected by White, wherever he was. A lot of the tricks have you shaking your head and going “no way!” but I can’t fairly describe them here – you simply have to see for yourself.

If you want to really make it a virtual big night, I just did this story on the most iconic restaurants in America that will ship you entire multicourse signature dinners. You can pair the show with Commander’s Place or Joe’s Stone Crab and have a major night in.

“The response has been amazing – with shows sold out into January already. After all of those months off-stage – it’s good to be back. Digitally. The first two months of shows sold out in 12 hours. We added some additional shows in late December last week, and those are sold out now as well.”

When I reviewed the original live version, I wrote, “I cannot recommend the show enough.” That stands, but for anyone who is feeling stir crazy and living a Groundhog Day rinse and repeat scenario, it’s even more so. A virtual “night out” might be just what you need.

Abracadabra!

The show runs $122 and each ticket is for a household of up to four. You need a computer with mic and camera as for Zoom or Skype. The show is live and different each night but runs around 80 minutes and is offered twice each Friday and Saturday evening. It is recommended for those 18 or over but is fairly clean, though audience members are unpredictable in dress and language. As of a few hours ago, tickets were available from January 15^th onwards.